Tag: investigation
James Comer

Raskin: Oversight Chair Worked With Trump Lawyers To Kill Tax Probe

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer is putting up a perfect display of Republican priorities, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the committee, is on the case.

On the one hand, Comer is not only dropping an agreement with Mazars, the longtime accounting firm for Donald Trump, to produce documents relating to foreign government spending at Trump properties during Trump’s time in the White House—he’s coordinating with Trump’s lawyers about the move. And at the same time, Comer is broadening his investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden and someone with no government role whatsoever, to demand banking records for three of Hunter Biden’s business associates.

Pointing out that documents Mazars already turned over to the committee show hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from governments including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China to Trump’s businesses, Raskin wrote, in a letter to Comer, “On January 19, 2023, Patrick Strawbridge, counsel for Donald Trump, wrote to counsel for Mazars, stating ‘I do not know the status of Mazars [sic] production, but my understanding is that the Committee has no interest in forcing Mazars to complete it and is willing to release it from further obligations under the settlement agreement.’”

Raskin continued, “When counsel for Mazars sought clarification, Mr. Strawbridge confirmed this direction had been provided to him, twice, by the Acting General Counsel of the House of Representatives, in his capacity as counsel to the Committee.” This is, Raskin wrote, “an astonishing delegation of the legislative power of the Chair to a twice-impeached former President whose Executive Branch actions are still actively under Committee investigation.”

At the same time, Comer subpoenaed Bank of America seeking 14 years of financial records for three of Hunter Biden’s business associates. This isn’t just records of a specific business. It was a demand for “all financial records” from the moment Joe Biden became vice president until now.

“These documents go well beyond any business deal with Hunter Biden or CEFC,” Raskin wrote. “They intrude into private details of Mr. Walker’s and his family’s finances: how much he pays for his child’s dance lessons, when he has been to the hospital, how many parking tickets he has paid, how often he eats at Papa John’s or has coffee at Starbucks, and how much he spends on groceries at Safeway.”

To House Republicans, Walker’s participation with Hunter Biden in a failed business venture makes this information a more legitimate target for investigation than evidence of foreign governments spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump properties. As Raskin accurately summed up, “I fear this wildly overbroad subpoena suggests that your interest in this investigation is not in pursuing defined facts or informing public legislation but conducting a dragnet of political opposition research on behalf of former President Trump.”

So: Information on how a former president and would-be future president profited, while in office, from foreign government spending is not of interest to the Republicans in control of the House Oversight Committee.

But: Detailed personal financial records of the business associates of a person who is not in the government are at the center of what these Republicans are doing.

It’s obviously partisan—Republicans want to investigate Democrats and end investigations of Republicans—but it’s more than that. The difference in the closeness to power of what and who is under investigation is telling. It’s the guy who was in the White House vs. people who did business with the son of the guy in the White House, with no reason, despite multiple investigations, to believe that the president has had any involvement in his son’s business dealings, let alone steered U.S. policy in directions favorable to his son.

Comer and his Republican buddies would like voters to believe that, wow, if they’re demanding financial records of people who just did business with Hunter Biden, there must be a there there. But the reality is that what it shows is that they have nothing on the president. If they even thought they did, they’d be investigating him.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Big Majority Believes Asking Foreign Power For Election Help Is ‘Wrong’

Big Majority Believes Asking Foreign Power For Election Help Is ‘Wrong’

More than 4 in 5 Americans (81 percent) say asking foreign governments for help in an election is wrong, according to a new Grinnell College poll released Tuesday.

The results are the same or higher among Trump’s political base.

The same poll shows 81 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of evangelical Christians, and 87 percent of rural voters agree that it is wrong to ask for such assistance.

The poll is in line with other national polls showing similar public sentiment. In a late July Quinnipiac poll, 78 percent of voters agreed with the statement that “it is never acceptable for a presidential campaign to obtain information on a political opponent from a hostile foreign power.”

In a mid-October poll from the University of Maryland, 68 percent of respondents said a president asking foreign leaders to interfere in a U.S. election was an impeachable offense.

The questions come amid an ongoing impeachment inquiry in the House of Representatives, focused on Donald Trump’s actions with regard to Ukraine. Trump has been criticized for his efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his 2020 election rival Joe Biden, as well as a long-debunked conspiracy theory about the DNC servers.

Several officials have also claimed Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine, conditioning that assistance on Ukraine’s willingness to launch such an investigation. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted to a quid pro quo for the DNC information earlier this month before trying to walk back his remarks later.

While a majority of Americans are clear-eyed about the impropriety of seeking foreign interference, several Republican senators have struggled to reach that same conclusion.

In early October, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) was asked repeatedly if it was appropriate for a president to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival. Gardner refused to say yes or no.

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) reacted similarly, refusing to answer a simple question about the issue, as did Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

As Republicans continue to hedge on the issue or avoid it altogether, Americans more broadly seem to have more concrete opinions on the matter. Polls show the public increasingly likely to support impeachment as the House inquiry continues, with one survey showing more support for Trump’s impeachment than for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment back in 1998.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Texas Grand Jury Resumes Investigation Into Arrest, Death Of Sandra Bland

Texas Grand Jury Resumes Investigation Into Arrest, Death Of Sandra Bland

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

HOUSTON — The Texas grand jury looking into the death of Sandra Bland resumed its examination Wednesday, renewing the possibility that the state trooper who arrested the 28-year-old woman could be charged.

The grand jury has already concluded that no felony was committed by the sheriff’s office or jailers in connection with Bland’s death.

Bland was found hanged by a plastic bag in her jail cell three days after she was arrested outside Houston on July 10 during a routine traffic stop.

Special prosecutor Shawn McDonald said the Waller County grand jury met for the fourth time Wednesday morning after reaching no decision last month on whether Brian T. Encinia, the trooper who arrested Bland, should face charges.

McDonald said he couldn’t say whether the grand jury was considering charges against Encinia, but said the panel will likely finish its work by day’s end.

He is one of five Houston-area lawyers appointed as independent special prosecutors to present the case to the grand jury. If there are any indictments, those lawyers will take the case to trial.

Bland’s family and activists have questioned how the traffic stop was conducted and whether Bland, an outspoken online advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, killed herself. At the time Bland was stopped, she had just accepted a job at her alma mater, Prairie View A&M University.

Encinia pulled over Bland for making an improper lane change near the university’s entrance, about 50 miles northwest of Houston. The confrontation that ensued before Bland was arrested and charged with assault was captured on video by a dashboard camera.

Bland was taken to the Waller County jail in nearby Hempstead where, three days later, unable to make $500 bail, she was discovered hanged in her cell. After an autopsy by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston, officials ruled her death a suicide.

Cannon Lambert, an attorney for the Bland family, said they have little hope the grand jury will indict Encinia.

“We would frankly be surprised,” Lambert told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

But Lambert said there’s still a chance the grand jury could charge the trooper.

“We called it a sham before — I’d love to be wrong,” he said, “We always have believed that he acted criminally.”

Lambert said he was hopeful that if the grand jury finishes Wednesday, investigators would finally release records, including a Texas Ranger’s report, that have so far been withheld due to the ongoing investigation.

Bland’s relatives have demanded the records as part of a wrongful death lawsuit they filed in August against the Waller County Sheriff’s Office, jail officials and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Last month, attorneys representing Waller County filed a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Bland took her life because she was distraught that her family members didn’t bail her out of jail.

Following last month’s grand jury meetings, protesters gathered outside the Waller County courthouse and marched in a Houston park to condemn the process and call for the Justice Department to launch an independent investigation.

State lawmakers monitoring the case have asked for calm as the grand jury meets.

©2016 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Demonstrators hold signs of Sandra Bland and Kindra Chapman, both of whom died in custody, during a rally against police violence in New York July 22, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton